Faith, Hope & Love.

This past weekend, I visited my Poppy. He sat in a chair, struggling to breathe. He didn't look like he had a couple days earlier. He was taking steps back.

I pushed it out of my mind the best I could. There was nothing I could do but sit and wait. He wouldn't want me to put my life on hold for him. I needed to just think positively and have faith.

Then I got a text from my mom on Sunday. 

"Poppy's being taken back to the CCU. He's not doing well Heather."

She continued to update me the next two days saying that he was put on a bi-pap machine to help regulate and stabilize his breathing and that if didn't work, there was a possibility that we would have to intubate him. Possibility.

Possibility.

That possibility turned into reality.

My little family of three, my mom and grandma all shared dinner on Monday night. We sat and talked about Poppy. Laughed and shared stories.

"He's gonna be ok."

"He has to be ok"

"This is going to work"

Were some of the conversations.

We had hope.

And then the call came.

10P

The hospital showed up on the caller ID.

My mom answered and the first words of her mouth were

"Do we need come in?"

No only did they have to rush up to the hospital but they had to decide at that moment, what our extraordinary measures were going to be for him should something happen.

"We will be there in 20 mins" my mom insisted.

"No, we need to know now. What do you want us to do if something happens?" the dr pushed.

"You do whatever you need to do."

Life changed instantly.

 My mom called my uncle and told him to come up.

My mom told my grandma and she broke down.

We were going to need to make some big decisions.

Were we going to put him on a ventilator, with a slim chance of surviving and have him fight? Or keep him on the bi-pap, keep him comfortable and let him die?

They got to the hospital and saw him struggling.

He was laboring to stay alive and beginning to hallucinate.

He didn't really understand the entirety of everything but

he told my Grandma he wasn't scared.

He told his kids he loved them and that they would always be his kids.
He said when this was all over and done with he wanted to go home and take a family vacation to his home in Hawaii and eat saimin.

They said their goodbyes without really saying goodbyes.

We weren't ready to lose him.

He was intubated late Monday night/early Tuesday morning.

And my mom's last words to me that night were

"It's sad but he looks peaceful"

I spent the night in a fog.

Crying desperately.

Praying.

Sleepless.

I had to get up there and see him.

I had to.

I woke up Tuesday morning and made it up there by the early afternoon.
I broke down as I walked the hallway to his room. My mom said it would be ok.
Nothing about this was ok.
And then I saw him.

There are no words to describe seeing someone, who is a father figure to you,
lying there intubated and unable to move.
my mom told me to grab his hand and I did.
His grip was strong and he squeezed my hand tight three times.
He was telling me he loved me.
He opened up his eyes and squinted them, letting me know he was smiling.
He shook his head and said he was ok.
And he never let go of my hand.

We've had a lot of good news in the past 48 hours. He looks 100% better than he did Saturday when I saw him and he went from 100% oxygen to 75% on his ventilator, which we like to believe is great. He is responsive and as bossy as ever. And tonight he wrote "I feel like I'm getting better."
We believe these are amazing strides because we have hope. We honestly cannot believe any other way.

But with good comes bad and we've heard numerous times that he will never come home, nor will he ever come off the ventilator. His underlying lung disease has gotten much worse and is not only killing him, but really drowning him. And a bunch of other things that aren't worth mentioning in this little blog. Those words sting because we see progress he has made since Monday and honestly, when you are going through a time like this, all you can have is hope.

So tonight my uncle sat with him and told him how he had to get better because we were planning a big family vacation to his childhood home of Maui later this year. We would load him up on a cruise ship and meet him over there. He would enjoy his time with his family and my uncle would take him on the golf course, where Poppy could sit on the cart and watch and maybe get up and putt a couple times. We would be together. We would get through this. Poppy shook his head and took deep breaths, as he envisioned this hope. We can only have hope.

We can only have hope.


--


I'm not a very religious person but I thought of the below verse as I finished up this blog post. And while it's a common wedding verse and often used to depict romantic love, as I reread it tonight I realized, this is love. True love. And this is my poppy and our family at this time. We are loving the most we can, holding hope and keeping faith best we can. And that's all we can offer. Love. Miracles exist. Here's hoping for our miracle.



 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
 Love never fails.
 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7, 13